Dead or Alive 5 Review

Posted By Gabriel B. about 7 months, 3 weeks ago

Dead or Alive 5 Review

When the Xbox 360 came out almost seven years ago, I was excited about one game. It wasn’t Perfect Dark Zero, it wasn’t Kameo, it wasn’t even Call of Duty 2. It was Dead or Alive 4. The game was a solid continuation of the franchise, though it had some online issues and some pretty big balancing issues. Now, after a long dry spell for the franchise, excluding some entries in a spin-off series that will not be mentioned, and the departure of series creator, Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja finally brings a new entry to the fighting series. Still, after such a long time, can this series shine again? Short answer: Yes.

Dead or Alive 5 picks up two years after the events of Dead or Alive 4. After Helena blew up DOATEC’s headquarters, the fighters have all gone their separate ways. Bass has decided to retire from the ring and work on an oil rig, Lei Fang and Hitomi have gotten over the cabbage incident and traveled the world training, Elliot decided to accompany Brad on his travels, and Zack has become Helena’s personal assistant while she works alongside Hayate and Ayane to stop Donovan from using his hidden labs to finish project Alpha. Amidst all this, Kasumi is trying to track down Alpha 152, the final boss from DoA4.

While the story has never been the biggest strength of past Dead or Alive games, Team Ninja did a very impressive job in retooling the story mode into a fun and entertaining experience. Instead of just being an arcade mode with a couple of specific cutscenes for each character, Dead or Alive 5’s story mode tries to tell a nonlinear story that jumps around between events leading up to, during, and after the fifth Dead or Alive Tournament. The story itself doesn’t reach the heights of Mortal Kombat’s B-movie goodness, but what it does do well is develop some of the characters beyond the tidbits that the previous games gave us. For example, Bass and Tina, who were two characters that were rather annoying at the best of times, get to be shown when they are in their private lives and they are actually pretty likable when they are helping out on an oil rig or giving a new fighter some tips, respectively. Probably my favorite parts of the story mode were the ones that had Brad and Elliot since they have a pretty entertaining odd couple routine. That’s not to say it’s all good–there are a few plot points that are brought up then left undeveloped, the Leifang and Jann Lee portions are as bland as ever, and while the game has Sarah and Akira from the Virtua Fighter series appear, they just show up and fight without saying anything. On the whole though, it’s a big improvement over past entries and has a surprisingly satisfying endgame.

When the screen looks like this, someone is in for a beatdown.

However, the plot structure wasn’t the only thing that changed about story mode. While the game still has the training mode from past entries in the series, the story mode adds bonus missions to each fight that explain the nuances of the fighting system or specific character quirks, like Brad’s drunken fighting style. The bonus missions are completely optional but offer an extra challenge for veterans and give new players lessons in an actual combat situation. Admittedly, since the computer isn’t holding its punches, some of the missions are very risky (especially the ones which require you to get stunned and then counter a blow) but the fact that they are optional keeps the bonus missions from being tedious. Overall, this is a welcome addition and alteration to Dead or Alive’s traditional story mode.

As for the other offline modes, all of them have returned from Dead or Alive 4, with the exception of team mode. Arcade and time attack are the same–fight eight rounds and fight eight rounds as fast as possible, respectively. Survival mode has changed somewhat: in addition to there being no items to collect, the easier modes have a limited number of opponents to defeat while the harder difficulties (a total of seven difficulties can be chosen in arcade, time attack, and survival) offer a near infinite number of opponents to face off against. Versus mode is unchanged for the most part, though now you can accept challenges from other players when you’re connected to Xbox Live or PSN.

E-rank is something that you have to work hard for in this game.

Speaking of online play, things have improved significantly from the days of Dead or Alive 4. No longer do you run around a virtual lobby, you just search for or set up your own lobby (settings are even saved so you can easily recreate your search or the lobby you want to host) like most other fighters. The modes are pretty typical of other fighters (winner stays, loser stays, tournament, etc.) and all of them can be done 1-on-1 or as a tag team match. The modes can also be played ranked, with all fighters having to fight their way up from ‘F’ rank to possibly reach the coveted ‘S +’ rank, or as a simple match for no stakes. There is also the extremely helpful ability to register fighters you meet so you can fight them or an AI version of them. Finally, I never experienced any lag while playing and all of the stages from the other modes were available for selection.

Speaking of stages, Dead or Alive 5 has a great selection of varied locations to kick the crap out of other fighters. From an ancient temple, to a high-tech secret lab, this game has plenty of selections. Of course, the big reason the stages in DOA are so much fun is the danger zones you can use to hurt opponents, and this is another area where the arenas excel; not only can you knock opponents into walls and obstacles, as well as off of ledges (which can lead to whole new arenas that can also be selected before fights in all modes other than story), Dead or Alive 5 adds conditional danger zones. For example, in the “Tiger Show” stage, knocking an opponent into the “show time” sign will get a tiger to come down on the floor and run across a random path, doing tons of damage to anyone unfortunate enough to get in its way. In addition, there are cliffhanger danger zones and special obstacles that you can only throw opponents into by using special moves.

Sometimes games explore the human condition, other times games let you throw people into the path of a rampaging tiger.

Speaking of special moves, there have been some modifications to the fighting system that make the fighting more intense. For example, characters now have power moves and critical bursts. Power moves have actually existed in Dead or Alive before (most moves that required you to press back and hold P +K, for example) but now they can be charged longer and connecting an almost fully charged version will initiate a brutal cut scene where your character viciously beats an opponent and throws them into the nearest obstacle. Critical bursts on the other hand, allows you to dish out some more damage after you stun an opponent by performing a special move right before they recover. The game has even added the ability to escape midway from a combo throw, which is really useful to learn before fighting Ryu and Tina. The countering system however has been mostly unchanged, though the damage from a counter has been lessened slightly and the timing for countering while stunned has been made more lenient than in Dead or Alive 4. You can also perform tech rolls to lessen the damage from some throws and even attack while rising from a fall, which can buy you some time from even experienced players. Finally, side-stepping has been made smoother than past iterations.

The characters have undergone changes as well, though not so much that past players can’t pick them right up. Balancing has always been an issue in Dead or Alive and to the credit of Team Ninja, they tried their best to make things more balanced. The good news is that, even before the day one patch which will increase input times for several techniques and lessen the stagger time for many more, most of the characters are already at about the same ability level. Even grappling fighters like Bass and Lisa have been made easier to use and have new ways to transition into throws. Admittedly, the more I played online, the more players I found using Pai Chan and the new character, Rig, although it’s admittedly too early to tell which fighter will be exploited by the fighting game community as time goes on (though Ryu hasn’t changed at all outside of his damage output being dropped a bit and can bust out 6-hit combos like no one’s business… just saying).

Akira Yuki, new arena, new opponents, same voice clips.

As far as the new characters, though, they fit in nicely with the other fighters without overshadowing them. Rig, for instance, brings Taekwondo to the game, which adds a unique, but simple style that can easily stagger opponents and has some extremely damaging counters. Milla, on the other hand, adds in Mixed Martial Arts and is very true to the style, with simple throws that are meant to make opponents vulnerable to her fists. The Virtua Fighter characters also fit right in the mix and even Akira and Sarah, whose styles are already represented, are different enough from their counterparts by focusing on different aspects of their martial arts styles. Overall, the entire roster of 24 fighters is unique and the new characters fit right in, despite the representatives from Virtua Fighter being forced to use old voice clips.

Speaking of voice clips, Dead or Alive 5 does have an English dub and it does all right. While it can take some getting used to, especially the fighters who have accents, like Helena, the English voices did grow on me and I only turned the familiar Japanese dub on for nostalgia’s sake (and because Gen Fu’s dub actor is nowhere near as good as the original). As for the rest of the audio in the game, the sound effects are excellent and brutal and the soundtrack is fine, with a couple of memorable tracks and a slightly cheesy but surprisingly catchy rap song, Showdown, by Chosen1 that has become a guilty pleasure.

Rig: stupid name, stupid hoodie, genius fighter.

The visuals are also very well done and are a large improvement over Dead or Alive 4, without losing the aesthetic the series has become known for. For example, while saying the fighters look more realistic would be incorrect, there is a noticeable increase in detail, especially to the fighters’ heads, which have sharper faces and highly detailed hair and eyes. There have also been little visual effects added to show the wear on the fighters, like soot covering fighters if they get caught in an explosion, water and sweat dripping down their bodies, and dirt covering their skin if they get knocked down onto a muddy or dirt-covered surface. While the dirt and mud effects could be more convincing, it’s another nice touch.

Before I give my final thoughts, there is one topic that I feel needs to be addressed: how this game fits within the casual or professional fighting crowd. Dead or Alive 5 actually fits pretty well into both. The game starts by having you select the camera system you want: ‘casual’ for a more action-focused style and ‘professional’ for and if you want to eliminate impact effects (the shockwaves that appear when blows connect). You can also turn off danger zones, to ensure that the battle is decided completely by a test of skill and not who can use the tiger traps the best. This should be enough to satisfy gamers who want to turn it into a competition but between the bonus missions, training mode, and new ways to level the playing field, a fan of casual fighters could easily learn how to play at a higher level. Therefore, I think Dead or Alive 5 is a great game for both groups and can even be a good learning tool for players who want to get better at fighting games.

Ryu, shooting a fireball at me won't help your score.

Overall, Dead or Alive 5 succeeds in Team Ninja’s goal. They wanted to breathe new life into the franchise they are most known for and succeeded. Their re-tooling of the game’s story mode, improved online play and balancing, as well as creating two new characters who are already well-received by the community, show that they have a good grip on what they can do with the franchise and seem to have some exciting ideas for what they can do in the future. Hopefully it won’t take seven more years until we see what they do next. I highly recommend this game to anyone whose looking for a fun fighter.

A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review and was played for roughly 8 hours offline and 4 hours online. The game was played on the Xbox 360, but is also available on the PlayStation 3.

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